EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2014

[Jagan01]

1. I don't have the exact dates as I am recalling this from my memory after being on immigration forums from 2007. This has happened post July Fiasco. I have seen members posting on other forums many times.
2. I don't believe what CO says. Especially the ones he says it on visa bulletin. Many times he fills in visa bulletin with information just to write something. Sometimes he is serious. So I don't waste my time reading too much into his "explanations". He has erred many times and bluffed many times. Again if you ask me proof I have read visa bulletins in the past and then realized how speculative he was in some of those bulletins. For the record I have even spoken to CO to correct his misinterpretation of the law in terms of country caps. So I don't believe he is the absolute standard. For your information I have gone through INA country cap and allocation part to have a sensible conversation with him. I don't think some of you have even read INA properly. That is why a few of you guys keep misinterpreting the law and speculating.
3. I have been following my friend closely over the past 3 months about his approval actively. So I know first hand what I am talking about. Also I came to know how clueless many L2 officers are. One of them even said "We don't give details about the case to individuals".

gcq,

In your entire post, you have mentioned, you have done this and that. How CO has been wrong in the past in bulletins, etc.

But again, there is no example of prior YEAR that you have. There is no document links that you provide. So overall there is no FACT coming from your side. Rather than discrediting the CO, please try and provide supportive documents or numbers to support your claims.

I have given you facts:
1. DD notes section - http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/Empl...utOffDates.pdf
2. NO approvals from Sep 20 - Sep 30 - trackitt data

[gcq]

gcq,

In your entire post, you have mentioned, you have done this and that. How CO has been wrong in the past in bulletins, etc.

But again, there is no example of prior YEAR that you have. There is no document links that you provide. So overall there is no FACT coming from your side. Rather than discrediting the CO, please try and provide supportive documents or numbers to support your claims.

I have given you facts:
1. DD notes section - http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/Empl...utOffDates.pdf
2. NO approvals from Sep 20 - Sep 30 - trackitt data

As for providing proof, to be frank, I don't have time to do that. I don't think even if I provide proof you are going to change your "belief". Please read INA thoroughly and you will come at conclusions that I and more knowledgeable people have arrived at. To convince you without you reading INA properly is a futile attempt.

1. I didn't mean to say October numbers were never allocated. My point about this is entire 2014 quota was not released in October. Part of October approvals is from 2013. I have provided my first hand experience of my friend. If you don't want to consider that, I don't mind. I am not going to spend any more time trying to convince you.

2. I have already provided explanation for that. You continue to pretend that I never did.

Please continue to believe what you would like, it is upto you. Or read INA and get educated. There is only one thing that is absolute, INA. CO or his actions are not a standard to rely on. He is human being and can and has made mistakes.
Again it is up to you whether you want to speculate !

[gcq]

But the thing is we did not see any approval at all in the last few days of September coinciding the DOS memo that visas had run out. If according to your theory, had there been a lag of a few days between the time a visa is assigned and the trackitt status is updated, we still should have seen a stream of approvals in the last few days of September.

I don't doubt that some approvals in October are from FY2013 quota. However 90% of them should not be. You take the other position, but how can you ignore the "no approval" period in September simultaneously? Is there any other reason such as the USCIS doing other things in those few days?

What are you relying on for your theory that there were no approvals past September 20 ? Trackitt ? Not every applicant visit trackitt and even if they receive approval, they may not post it. So the assumption that there were no approvals past Sep 30 is on a shaky ground !

[PD2008AUG25]

That will be it from me. For my sake, I hope you are right, but the realist in me has succumbed to the fact that QSP may be happening. The optimist in me is hoping that jagan's theory is right (INA notwithstanding) and CO will stop the floodgate once "sufficient" EB2I numbers are approved. I don't know what that "sufficient" is. If we are in the QSP territory, no one knows.

I can think of few scenarios as to what CO may be up to with QSP.

CO presumes/knows that there is a fixed number of excess ROW visas that could be allocated to EB2I this quarter..say roughly 5k. So he keeps the date where they are. He knows that EB2I demand will eventually cross that number as porters and late filers start using up visas. He doesn't expect that to happen at least by November end, and possibly by December end.

Why would he do this? two reasons:

1) He doesn't like to retrogress unless he really has to. This situation gives Eb2I few more months of sanity.
2) He wants to keep workload for adjudicators somewhat even across the quarters. Imagine madness if Q1 is very light because EB2I doesn't have numbers and EB2ROW doesn't have demand and Q4 is very hectic as they have now much more applications to process with goal of wasting no numbers.

Alternate scenario could be, he may have same or higher number of EB2ROW available, but he wants to wait until last month to judge exact number and then for December bulletin, he forwards EB2I few weeks/months. This may depend on rate of EB2I approvals in rest of October and November. If there isn't much demand remaining from EB2I or demand is in pipeline, he may have more numbers to use for December.

[Jagan01]

I can think of few scenarios as to what CO may be up to with QSP.

CO presumes/knows that there is a fixed number of excess ROW visas that could be allocated to EB2I this quarter..say roughly 5k. So he keeps the date where they are. He knows that EB2I demand will eventually cross that number as porters and late filers start using up visas. He doesn't expect that to happen at least by November end, and possibly by December end.

Why would he do this? two reasons:

1) He doesn't like to retrogress unless he really has to. This situation gives Eb2I few more months of sanity.
2) He wants to keep workload for adjudicators somewhat even across the quarters. Imagine madness if Q1 is very light because EB2I doesn't have numbers and EB2ROW doesn't have demand and Q4 is very hectic as they have now much more applications to process with goal of wasting no numbers.

Alternate scenario could be, he may have same or higher number of EB2ROW available, but he wants to wait until last month to judge exact number and then for December bulletin, he forwards EB2I few weeks/months. This may depend on rate of EB2I approvals in rest of October and November. If there isn't much demand remaining from EB2I or demand is in pipeline, he may have more numbers to use for December.

My theory was along the same lines. CO knows approximate spillover and is sure that he wont overuse spillover if the dates are at June 08. He has found a sweet spot in June 08 and will keep it there. He is not violating any laws in the process.

I do not think dates will move ahead even by a day. Check the porting applications. Almost 5k filed between Aug and Sep 2013. Approximately 600 of them have got approvals so far. Thus many remain and they will all be eligible to get their GC by Nov second week. Hence if CO does not stop after the annual quota of 3000, then I think he will keep the dates steady as he knows demand is coming up.

[Jagan01]

As for providing proof, to be frank, I don't have time to do that. I don't think even if I provide proof you are going to change your "belief". Please read INA thoroughly and you will come at conclusions that I and more knowledgeable people have arrived at. To convince you without you reading INA properly is a futile attempt.

1. I didn't mean to say October numbers were never allocated. My point about this is entire 2014 quota was not released in October. Part of October approvals is from 2013. I have provided my first hand experience of my friend. If you don't want to consider that, I don't mind. I am not going to spend any more time trying to convince you.

2. I have already provided explanation for that. You continue to pretend that I never did.

Please continue to believe what you would like, it is upto you. Or read INA and get educated. There is only one thing that is absolute, INA. CO or his actions are not a standard to rely on. He is human being and can and has made mistakes.
Again it is up to you whether you want to speculate !

Still no proof , no documents, no evidence.

I think it is best to ignore things that are in people's mind and not in documents.

[bzabza]

Gurus,

This is my first post. Any prediction for EB2I July-21-2008?

Appreciate your response.

[qesehmk]

I think it is quite clear that there is difference of opinion/analysis. No point in arguing further. Unlike other blogs we respectfully disagree over here. So let's let this issue rest here. Everybody has made sufficient case for his/her viewpoint by now. Let readers read all that and make up their own mind.

Still no proof , no documents, no evidence.

I think it is best to ignore things that are in people's mind and not in documents.

[RGVJSR]

Hello Q / Members,

For EB-2 India following is the details from pending I-485 inventory data published:

------------May 2012 --Oct --2012 --Jan 2013--- Apr 2013 ---Jul 2013
CY 2007 -----4904 --------5142 -------5177 -------5298 -------5392
CY 2008 ----15136 --------15897 ----16020 ------16027 ------16125
CY 2009 -----13429 -------14199 ----14199 ------14171 ------14146

1.Why is it remaining constant even after major Q-4 spillover of FY-2012 ?
2.In GC allocation data published India EB-2 gets approx. 20K each in last 3 years(FY 10,11,12). Even then why it remains constant ?

Please clarify . Thanks for your time and attention.

-RGV1

[PD2008AUG25]

Gurus,

This is my first post. Any prediction for EB2I July-21-2008?

Appreciate your response.

Anywhere from December to July. More likely July.

[qesehmk]

RG - which data did you use?

The last pending 485 inventory is from July (unless I have missed something) and so obviously it wouldn't include the huge reduction we expect to see due to Q4 spillover.

Hello Q / Members,

For EB-2 India following is the details from pending I-485 inventory data published:

------------May 2012 --Oct --2012 --Jan 2013--- Apr 2013 ---Jul 2013
CY 2007 -----4904 --------5142 -------5177 -------5298 -------5392
CY 2008 ----15136 --------15897 ----16020 ------16027 ------16125
CY 2009 -----13429 -------14199 ----14199 ------14171 ------14146

1.Why is it remaining constant even after major Q-4 spillover of FY-2012 ?
2.In GC allocation data published India EB-2 gets approx. 20K each in last 3 years(FY 10,11,12). Even then why it remains constant ?

Please clarify . Thanks for your time and attention.

-RGV1

[bzabza]

Anywhere from December to July. More likely July.

Thank you.

[satwgl]

Hello Gurus,

This is my first post in this forum.

My PD is 09-OCT-2008 and currently Iam on EAD but wanted to check what are my chances in getting GC.

Appreciate your responses.

Thanks.

[Kanmani]

Hello Q / Members,

For EB-2 India following is the details from pending I-485 inventory data published:

------------May 2012 --Oct --2012 --Jan 2013--- Apr 2013 ---Jul 2013
CY 2007 -----4904 --------5142 -------5177 -------5298 -------5392
CY 2008 ----15136 --------15897 ----16020 ------16027 ------16125
CY 2009 -----13429 -------14199 ----14199 ------14171 ------14146

1.Why is it remaining constant even after major Q-4 spillover of FY-2012 ?
2.In GC allocation data published India EB-2 gets approx. 20K each in last 3 years(FY 10,11,12). Even then why it remains constant ?

Please clarify . Thanks for your time and attention.

-RGV1

RGV,

1. There was no spillover in the year 2012-Qr4. It happened during FY 2012 where priority dates were gradually advanced from 2007to may 2010, Flood gates were opened and new I-485 applications were collected and accounted into the inventory.

FY-2012 was the year when approvals came up in a random manner, applicants with PD in 2008 got approved ahead of 2007-ers (IVAMS allows this kind of visa request whenever the PD is current)

Dates were internally retrogressed and became unavailable starting from May 2012 visa bulletin, as a result, applicants with PD 2007 were struck and remained unaltered in the inventory.

2. Many applicants missed their chance in 2007 opening and filed their I-485 later, during 2011 opening. Also, EB3 applicants are constantly upgrading their category, hence EB2 approvals were nullified with the new numbers that are being constantly added into the inventory over the years.

[RGVJSR]

RG - which data did you use?

The last pending 485 inventory is from July (unless I have missed something) and so obviously it wouldn't include the huge reduction we expect to see due to Q4 spillover.

Hello Q,


You are right in saying that Q-4 spillover(FY-2013 ) data is not reflected in July 2013-- I-485 inventory data because SO is in month of Aug / Sep 2013 .
Also now I understand that there was no Q-4 spillover in FY-2012.

Next I-485 inventory data should give lot of idea of pending cases and actual approval in FY-2013.
Thanks.
-RGV1

[RGVJSR]

RGV,

1. There was no spillover in the year 2012-Qr4. It happened during FY 2012 where priority dates were gradually advanced from 2007to may 2010, Flood gates were opened and new I-485 applications were collected and accounted into the inventory.

FY-2012 was the year when approvals came up in a random manner, applicants with PD in 2008 got approved ahead of 2007-ers (IVAMS allows this kind of visa request whenever the PD is current)

Dates were internally retrogressed and became unavailable starting from May 2012 visa bulletin, as a result, applicants with PD 2007 were struck and remained unaltered in the inventory.

2. Many applicants missed their chance in 2007 opening and filed their I-485 later, during 2011 opening. Also, EB3 applicants are constantly upgrading their category, hence EB2 approvals were nullified with the new numbers that are being constantly added into the inventory over the years.

Hello Kanmani,
U made it clear.Thanks. I was out of touch with this numbers for last 1 year. Your PD is few days (Jun 2009) from mine. Do you expect we will get PR in FY-2014. What is best case / worst case time (Month/Yr) ? Your expert thoughts ?
-RGV

[eb2visa]

As the Demand Data is out and we kind of know how many are pending, Gurus could you please update the predictions on the first page for 2014

[YTeleven]

You will know in next 3 weeks when Dec'13 visa bulletin & DD comes out. Most probably you will be current in that month.
I strongly believe CO will follow the pattern which he followed in FY2012 and it is evident from the current allocations of visas to EB2-I from 01-Oct-13 to till today, he is allocating the visas even though EB2-I has a monthly quota of ~250 visas. Moreover, due to sequestration, shutdown, slowdown and year end holiday seasons there will be very very less EB2-ROW demand in Q1 and the porting is at its slowest phase, on top of this India representaion of PERM is increased to 60%. All these factors force him to follow the FY2012 pattern of allocating the visas in FY2014.

Gurus,

This is my first post. Any prediction for EB2I July-21-2008?

Appreciate your response.

[Jagan01]

You will know in next 3 weeks when Dec'13 visa bulletin & DD comes out. Most probably you will be current in that month.
I strongly believe CO will follow the pattern which he followed in FY2012 and it is evident from the current allocations of visas to EB2-I from 01-Oct-13 to till today, he is allocating the visas even though EB2-I has a monthly quota of ~250 visas. Moreover, due to sequestration, shutdown, slowdown and year end holiday seasons there will be very very less EB2-ROW demand in Q1 and the porting is at its slowest phase, on top of this India representaion of PERM is increased to 60%. All these factors force him to follow the FY2012 pattern of allocating the visas in FY2014.

It is not going to be similar to FY2012. There was a need to build inventory in FY2012. CO did it to have inventory build up so that there can be pre-adj cases which can just wait for getting numbers.

Sep 2011 visa bulletin: http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulleti...etin_5542.html
Oct 2011 I-485 inventory: http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Green%20C...001%202011.pdf

The dates for EB2I were Apr 2007, in Sep 2011 bulletin. As per the Oct 2011 inventory, there were only ~3500 applications that he has after Apr 2007. Hence he needed to build inventory, as every year EB2I gets a huge spillover (15000+). With the 3500 inventory, he would not have enough pre-adj cases and hence the need to push the dates.

I believe it will be similar to FY2010. The dates will stay where they are for the first 5 months and then move ahead gradually and jump ahead in the last two months.

[YTeleven]

He has to move the dates because there were NO EB2-ROW demand at that time. Now also the same sitution, there is NO EB2-ROW demand exists and it will NOT improve till the Q2 or even Q3. So there is NO other option other than relase those VISAs to EB2-I. You will understand what I'm saying when you see the Dec. / Jan. VB & DD comes out.

It is not going to be similar to FY2012. There was a need to build inventory in FY2012. CO did it to have inventory build up so that there can be pre-adj cases which can just wait for getting numbers.

Sep 2011 visa bulletin: http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulleti...etin_5542.html
Oct 2011 I-485 inventory: http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Green%20C...001%202011.pdf

The dates for EB2I were Apr 2007, in Sep 2011 bulletin. As per the Oct 2011 inventory, there were only ~3500 applications that he has after Apr 2007. Hence he needed to build inventory, as every year EB2I gets a huge spillover (15000+). With the 3500 inventory, he would not have enough pre-adj cases and hence the need to push the dates.

I believe it will be similar to FY2010. The dates will stay where they are for the first 5 months and then move ahead gradually and jump ahead in the last two months.

[Jagan01]

He has to move the dates because there were NO EB2-ROW demand at that time. Now also the same sitution, there is NO EB2-ROW demand exists and it will NOT improve till the Q2 or even Q3. So there is NO other option other than relase those VISAs to EB2-I. You will understand what I'm saying when you see the Dec. / Jan. VB & DD comes out.

Lets consider that EB2-ROW has zero demand. Lets for simplicity consider that all categories other than EB2I have zero demand. Great !!! All spillover comes to EB2I. Now EB2I can get 25000 visas in FY2014.

With the current inventory, CO still has 8000 left in 2008, 14000 in 2009, and 4000 in 2010. He can still have 26000 pre-adj cases which can get visas. He was able to give approx 8000 visas in Aug 2013 and 8000 in Sep 2013 because there were pre-adj cases ready. To distribute 25000 visas, he would need only 4 months if he has pre-adj cases.

The above numbers are exaggeration... I am just trying to point out that with zero EB2-ROW demand, EB2I will get nice spillover. However, that does not require the CO to move the dates in the upcoming months. He usually tends to wait till the last quarter.

If he does move the dates, for god know what reason, I would be happy

[Kanmani]

Hello Kanmani,
U made it clear.Thanks. I was out of touch with this numbers for last 1 year. Your PD is few days (Jun 2009) from mine. Do you expect we will get PR in FY-2014. What is best case / worst case time (Month/Yr) ? Your expert thoughts ?
-RGV

I think we will get it by sept FY2014.

The closure COD june 2008 gave me mixed feelings, I was happy that my wishful thinking came true though I didn't participate in the calculations. If it were September 2008 in FY2013, the entire 2009 would have passed in FY2014. I wish and hope to get more spillover in 2014 than that of in 2013. It is too early to predict.

[sreddy]

In my opinion CO just want to keep dates stable. Look at history for a minute. Opens flood gates with a huge forward movement to generate demand, then retrogress to a safer date, and keep moving forward there after until time for opening flood gates again. Numbers wise, no logic except CO knows there will be spill over from some where. Worst case if no category is expected to give any spillover, which is very unlikely, he can keep some cases pending for a month or two with some type of internal retrogession. But if porting numbers are too high, higher than last year or so, he may even move dates backwards first time.

Is it logical? may be not. But historically how much of CO's actions made perfect logical sense?

That's my take on what is going on here.

Lets consider that EB2-ROW has zero demand. Lets for simplicity consider that all categories other than EB2I have zero demand. Great !!! All spillover comes to EB2I. Now EB2I can get 25000 visas in FY2014.

With the current inventory, CO still has 8000 left in 2008, 14000 in 2009, and 4000 in 2010. He can still have 26000 pre-adj cases which can get visas. He was able to give approx 8000 visas in Aug 2013 and 8000 in Sep 2013 because there were pre-adj cases ready. To distribute 25000 visas, he would need only 4 months if he has pre-adj cases.

The above numbers are exaggeration... I am just trying to point out that with zero EB2-ROW demand, EB2I will get nice spillover. However, that does not require the CO to move the dates in the upcoming months. He usually tends to wait till the last quarter.

If he does move the dates, for god know what reason, I would be happy

[RGVJSR]

I think we will get it by sept FY2014.

The closure COD june 2008 gave me mixed feelings, I was happy that my wishful thinking came true though I didn't participate in the calculations. If it were September 2008 in FY2013, the entire 2009 would have passed in FY2014. I wish and hope to get more spillover in 2014 than that of in 2013. It is too early to predict.

Hello Kanmani,

I didn't understand your statement " if it were Sep 2008 in FY2013 , the entire 2009 would have passed in 2014 " FY 2013 ended in June 2008 which is not far from Sep2008. I think we need 4000 for porting+pending before June 2008 + 8000 (Jul-Dec 2008)+7000 (Jan-June 2009) + 7000(Jul-Dec 2009) , so total 26,000 for EB2-I in FY 2014 which will be historically highest to expect. Correct me if I am wrong. Is my numbers reasonable ? Your comments please . Thanks again.

Note: I have assumed 12K demand for 2008 even though demand data Nov says 9000 because some may be ported during FY 2014.

[Pedro Gonzales]

CO cannot and will not allocate entire years's quota in first month - that is a fact supported by law and history.

Not to reopen a heated debate but, it is actually supported neither by history nor by law. The law only talks about annual and quarterly quotas for an entire category (EB2, altogether), not individual countries within that category.

And as to history, South Korea has used up more than its annual quota in the first two quarters in a couple of years. I couldn't find the relevant threads on trackitt at this time. I'll edit this post as soon as i do.

To those of you who think it's possible that the lack of approvals between Sep 20th and Sep 30th was purely coincidental, let me show you the # of EB2I approvals on trackitt by day. This is date of approval stamped on their I485 approval notice, not the day they updated their trackitt profile.

Oct 17 - 9
Oct 16 - 26
Oct 15 - 12
Oct 14 - 0
Oct 13 - 0
Oct 12 - 12
Oct 11 - 7
Oct 10 - 14
Oct 9 - 18
Oct 8 - 26
Oct 7 - 27
Oct 6 - 0
Oct 5 - 0
Oct 4 - 17
Oct 3 - 23
Oct 2 - 28
Oct 1 - 5
Sep 30 - 0
Sep 29 - 0
Sep 28 - 0
Sep 27 - 0
Sep 26 - 0
Sep 25 - 0
Sep 24 - 1
Sep 23 - 0
Sep 22 - 0
Sep 21 - 0
Sep 20 - 1
Sep 19 - 2
Sep 18 - 5
Sep 17 - 40
Sep 16 - 64
Sep 15 - 2
Sep 14 - 57
Sep 13 - 59
Sep 12 - 76
Sep 11 - 57
Sep 10 - 48
Sep 9 - 43
Sep 8 - 1
Sep 7 - 24
Sep 6 - 66
Sep 5 - 40
Sep 4 - 53
Sep 3 - 40
Sep 2 - 1
Sep 1 - 2

As you can see above, the bulk of the approvals were between Sep 3 and Sep 17, there were a few approvals until Sep 20, and then only 1 for the rest of the month. The approvals started up again but at about half the rate from Oct 1. The rumours of visa exhaustion started on Sep 18th. It would be a huge coincidence that visas allocated in FY2013, just happened to start getting approvals on Oct 1 with a 10 day lull in between. It is far more likely that these Oct approvals are from the 2014 quota. Whether the 224 trackitt approvals to date account for the entire annual quota or more is unknown, so whether QSP is in effect or not is unknown, but I am certain that the EB2I is using more than its usual monthly allocation in October.